The True God
by Yung Warrior
Summary: At the end of it all, Bran tells Jon the real truth.


The True God

A Game of Thrones Fanfiction One-Shot by Yung Warrior

"You have your needle?" Jon asked Arya, immeasurable sadness and weight in his voice.

"Right here." Arya answered, gesturing to the sheath at her waist. Unable to hold the tears back, she wept before embracing her brother one last time. Sansa looked on, also crying. Bran sat silently, watching with a cool expression.

Jon moved to say goodbye to his last brother, and the new lord of the six kingdoms. As he kneeled before Bran, it took all of Jon's strength to look in him in the eyes. "Your Grace," Jon did not forget his courtesies, "I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me."

Bran's expression did not change – it never did, these days. "You were exactly where you were supposed to be." It was a puzzling statement to Jon, but he supposed he couldn't understand what it meant to be the Three-Eyed Raven. He only hoped that somewhere inside that broken body was the soul of little Bran, the adventurous boy who once dreamed of being a knight.

"Sansa, Arya." Something inscrutable flashed in Bran's Tully-blue eyes. "Please leave us. I'd like to speak to Jon alone."

The sisters seemed concerned at this request, each sharing a meaningful sidelong glance. At their hesitancy, Bran simply stared in that cold, far-off manner of his until they silently made their way from the docks. At the end of the pier, safely out of hearing range, they spoke to Podrick and the other Kingsguard responsible for moving Bran around.

Bran mechanically turned back to Jon. Searching, he looked into Jon's eyes. Before Jon could realize what was going on, his mind was invaded. Faces, images, names, scenes poured into him unbidden, and for a time he could not make sense of them.

"_The things I do for love."_ A golden figure pushed Bran from the tower, and he was flying down, down, down….it was Jaime Lannister, Jon dimly realized. But were his eyes always that color?

"_Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!"_ Joffrey gave the fateful order, and Eddard Stark was beheaded in front of the Great Sept. There was something different, something strange about Joffrey's eyes, but Jon could not place what…

"_The Lannisters send their regards."_ Roose Bolton's voice slithered through Jon's mind, and he felt the knife plunge into Robb's heart. Black Walder's knife cut across Lady Catelyn's throat, and the blood poured and poured, an endless stream of red, sticky life…

"_Wherever whores go…" _Tywin Lannister's unwise reply earned a crossbow shot to the gut. As his dying body splayed across the privy, Tyrion had a far away look, like a man possessed…

"_Chaos is a ladder." _First the voice was Littlefinger's, then it morphed into the robotic tones of Bran as he was now. Jon was examining the Valyrian steel dagger in his hands, turning over contemplatively. And then suddenly he was Arya, shoving the short blade into the Night King's thigh, ending the threat of the Others with a whimper…

"_Promise me, Ned…"_ This was the strangest vision yet. Jon couldn't recognize anyone here. He was in a tower somewhere, but it was surely no tower he had been to. There was a handmaid, a young man with northern armor, and a young woman in a bed of blood. A mother, he realized. A babe was exchanging hands, from the mother's to the young man's. But who is this baby, and why did this matter? Then, Jon was barraged by the voices of Bran, Sam, Sansa, Varys, Daenerys and…himself?

"_Now is the time." _

"_The true king…"_

"_I've never been a Stark."_

"_What if there was someone better?"_

"_How many others know?"_

"_Let it be fear."_

And then, Jon could see nothing but flames and burning bodies, and hear nothing but the collapse of buildings and the sound of cracking bones. Just as he was about to scream, he returned to reality, to the docks. It was a peaceful day, with low winds and warm sunlight. Jon was shaking, and had to hold onto Bran's wheelchair for support.

"Don't scream." Bran commanded. "Don't do anything out of the ordinary. It would not do for the others to get suspicious."

Jon's mind was completely overwhelmed. "Wha….huh….why?" He croaked out.

Bran let out a…self-deprecating chuckle? "I am sorry, Jon. I forget that your human minds cannot process information as fast as I can now. I just felt that you deserved to know the truth. The real truth. You are a good man, and you are owed that much. Well, I also desired to reveal my true plans to someone. Indulgent perhaps, but even a god must be allowed some vices." He withdrew two wineskins from his coat pocket, and handed one to Jon, who numbly accepted it and took a swig.

"Your true plans?" Horrible, unthinkable things began to take root in Jon's mind.

"You are no stranger to hard truths, my friend. And now that you're exiled to the far north and out of a position of power, there is no risk in showing you my true self. I feared that no one else would be able to understand. These humans are so arrogant, believing themselves players in the game of thrones, believing that their moves are significant in the face of a god's design. Littlefinger, Varys, Melisandre, Doran Martell, the maesters with their glass candles, even Quaithe…none of them hold a candle to my power and cunning. Could you imagine a character in a story believing themselves to be on the same level as the author?" Bran asked Jon, as if Jon would answer the question satisfactorily.

Jon was utterly flabbergasted as he pieced it all together. Well, most of it, anyways. He had no idea who the fuck Quaithe was. But still, he understood that Bran, no, the Three-Eyed Raven claimed to have planned _everything_, down the smallest push and the lightest touch. But could that really be true? Surely not. Human beings were chaotic and unpredictable. There is no way everything could have been a part of some grand plan…could it?

"Yes, they are all worms who seek to crawl above their station. They should have known their place. That's what I've always liked about you, Jon. You have never sought power for it's own sake, but rather accepted it gracefully when it was thrust upon you. Your sense of duty is admirable. And you have a certain charisma with people, despite your rather lackluster way with words. I suppose being handsome makes up for a lot of that. But anyways, that's why I had to bring you back." Bran spoke more casually now, as one might to an old friend.

Jon's eyes were as wide as dinner plates. "Bring…did you say bring me back?!" He almost yelled before Bran put a finger to his lips.

"Shh. Like I said, there is no cause for concern. This is simply an honest conversation between two brothers." Bran smiled smugly. Once again, Jon had to use the chair for support.

"You couldn't have…that was Melisandre's doing." Jon protested weakly.

"A true god can take many different faces." Bran smiled, leaning his head imperceptibly to Arya. "You're lucky enough to have the right of it – the old gods, or should say the old god is the only true one – R'hllor, the Seven, the Drowned God, and the Many-Faced God are simply incarnations I don as it suits me. You see, having many different religions across the land are rather conducive to war, which was necessary for all this. Melisandre simply exercised my will, albeit unknowingly. She was very useful."

Jon was speechless. All his life, he was being led along like a puppet, dancing for the pleasure of this mad self-proclaimed deity. He wasn't even allowed to die – the raven could just bring him back as it pleased him. He might have been enraged, but his mind simply could not process this information, and so he teetered on the edge of despair.

"Of course, the most useful of my agents were Tyrion and Sansa, by far. Oh sure, Arya killed the Night King, but I could not have disposed of the Dragon Queen and become king if not for those two." Bran chuckled and shook his head, taking another drink from the skin. "Oh Jon, I'm afraid you really shouldn't have trusted Sansa with that little secret. Girls her age are prone to gossip. Of course, the information would have gotten out some other way if not through her, but my point is that you should have taken that little secret to your grave, if you truly didn't want the throne. Did you want the throne, truly? You can tell me, it's just us here." Ironically, although he had just chastised Jon for revealing secrets, he was asking him to share another.

Of course, Jon did not answer that either. "It was all just for this…just so you could be fucking king?! All of this death, suffering and despair, just so you could be king? How does that make you any better than the others who played and died in the game of thrones?!" He protested, albeit quietly so that the others would not overhear.

"Well, I won, so that objectively makes me better than them at this little game. I also happen to be a god, and they aren't, so there's that. Of course, there will be wars to come as well. Dorne and the Iron Islands will surely secede again in a few decades once their armies are replenished, and Bronn will most likely be assassinated by some ambitious Reacher lord in…oh, I'll give him three months. But that's all part of the plan, you don't have to worry about that. All in good time. You, you're going to go off and live a nice, simple life with your wildling friends. Really, you should be thanking me. If everything goes as planned, you'll marry a nice woman, father fine children, and die at a ripe old age. And this way, the blood of old Valyria gets to live on as well! It's really a great deal."

Jon swallowed, coming to terms with the fact that life was meaningless. He could shove Bran into the water right now. It would be easy, just a simple push. But he had no idea whether the three-eyed raven could simply find another host or not, and he was just so _tired_ of everything. Frankly, living a simple, clean life away from all of these insane, power-hungry schemers sounded awesome. In a way, Jon supposed he was lucky that the raven liked him so much.

Quietly, Jon closed his eyes and wished everything would end for good. No, more than that, he wanted to be as far away from these people as possible. Everyone lied and schemed. They heaped burdens on him and asked him to carry the weight of the world with nary a single slip. Even his own family used him as a pawn as they saw fit.

In truth, he was tired of this world and these people. He was tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives. And so, like a leaf in a river, he would accept this destiny and try to regain some semblance of inner peace.

"Now, you see. I knew you would. You are wise, Jon." Bran nodded. "Everything is in service to the greater good. Now go. Serve your god."

With emptiness in his eyes and deep disgust in his heart, Jon boarded his ship, a defeated man.

**A/N**

**LMAO I did not like the finale to GOT much at all, in case you couldn't tell. Even my family, who are super casual watchers, thought it was wack. But I don't think anyone did. I did think it was interesting that the show left open the possibility that Bran/3ER manipulated everything in order to become king. I do believe in the novels that a few characters (namely Bloodraven, Quaithe, Littlefinger, Varys, and Doran) are basically in control of most of the story's events, so this idea was not new to me. That said, I was surprised at how much I really hated Bran by the end of the show, which is part of the inspiration for this weird little fic. **

**Anyways, my hope is that people who are disappointed with the ending of the show, which is everyone as far as I can tell, pick up the novels. They are truly rich works that reward you for deductive reasoning and a close reading, I really love them.**

**Thank you for reading and have a blessed day!**


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